Mike,
A year and a half ago you posted about converting your project from
a "non-modified" (really? Is there such a thing?) "KR2 on retractable gear"
to tri-gear.
After a year on Krnet (I lost my heart to KR) and a year on
Sonextalk (my brother-in-law and prospective partner in building did not
want to get into fiberglass work), my brother-in-law and I became the
silly-happy new owners of N26LT this week. I thought we were going to get a
Sonex kit when we could afford it, but we found this KR for sale with 300
hours on it, a HAPI VW 1835, and when he convinced himself he could fit in
it with seat dropped to the max, we bought it. Our plane is a
"non-modified" (really?) KR2 on retractable gear. We want to remove the
retractable gear and make it a tri-gear. We would like to talk to anyone
who has been through this conversion about the process.
You said you had a single piece Grove gear made up. I thought there
was a bracket available to mount spring gear on the main spar in the wing
stubs? What have others used for the main who mounted tri-gear?
Oh, and it's great to be back on Krnet! Next year we hope to make
it to the gathering. Thanks,
Rich H. Meyer
Cptcsd at npcc dot net
Phone 574-642-3963
Cell 574-202-3920
------------------------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: krnet-boun...@mylist.net [mailto:krnet-boun...@mylist.net] On Behalf
Of Michael Geoghegan
Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2004 2:43 PM
To: Krnet
Subject: KR>First flight for low time pilot (long)
Netters
My name is Mike Geoghegan. I have been a member of KRNET for about 4 years.
I have posted to the net on a few occasions but for the most part I have
listened and gathered a great deal of information which I have used in the
completion of my kr2.
N47MG is a close to plans built kr2. About 4 years ago I rescued a boat
stage project that had been sitting in a barn for 10 years. It was going to
the dumps or my garage and since I was looking for a project to take up some
of my spare time I put it in my garage. I had started down the road toward
a private license in 1980 and got about 20 hours and solo when, due to
children, work, and everything else I had to stop. Well now with the last
child off to college I was ready to finally get that license. The kr
project would keep me busy and when finished, I would have a plane to fly.
For those of you who are not low time pilots I can make this post short and
tell you that I am flying N47MG and I will be providing photos for everyone
to see as soon as the weather in Vermont gets a little warmer. I hope that
will be soon.
The following is a recap of my experience getting my plane in the air with
very little flight time in my log book. The project was a non modified tail
wheel kr2 on retracts. I won't go into detail on the completion of the
project except to say that I stuck to the plans and ended up with a dry
weight of 598 lbs. There were a few things I did in the completion process
that I would recommend to others.
1. Be sure to balance ailerons and elevator. The elevator balance
is important because without it your elevator trim won't overcome the weight
of the elevator.
2. Don't short change the importance of both aileron and elevator
trim. I installed what was then Mac servos in the elevator and the very
smallest one in the left aileron so I could see it off to my left. It is a
12 inch piano hinge with a piece of 12 x 2 inch sheet metal attached to the
trailing edge of the aileron. The servos are controlled by the four buttons
on the top of the stick. (also a Mac product) With the use of both trims I
can fly this plane hands free for short periods of time.
3. The engine that came with the project was a 1700cc vw. It was
mounted as a hand prop setup and it had a posa carb installed. I rebuilt
the engine and when I got to the point of testing it I ran into a lot of
trouble with the posa carb. Suffice to say that after many hours of testing
I lost my patience. I bit the bullet and bought an Ellison. I also
purchased an accessory case with starter and alternator. The Ellison is
fantastic and the starter is much safer.
Now to the hard part. I finished my project in September of 2002. Got the
airworthiness certificate and it was ready for testing. I did some low
speed taxi testing to maybe 25 mph but I didn't have my pilot certificate
yet so I was not going to be able to fly it anyway. I found a test pilot
with lots of tail wheel time that was willing to take a test flight. In
October of 2002 he showed up for an inspection and a half hour later he got
in and took off. The test went very well. Climbs, steep turns, stalls, and
a picture perfect wheel landing. He made it all look very easy. The only
thing I had to do was increase the surface area of the aileron trim so it
could hold the plane level hands free.
After the test flight I had to take my check ride and get my certificate.
Once I did that I now had a tail wheel kr2 ready to fly. I know that there
have been some conversations on the net about not needing a tail wheel
endorsement to fly an experimental but you have to be a fool to think that
you don't need any tail wheel experience to successfully fly one. Since the
test pilot I used was not a CFI and I couldn't find anyone to give me the
tail wheel experience I proceeded to do a lot of taxi testing myself. After
about 6 hours of time trying to keep the tail up and the plane straight and
almost loosing it on a number of occasions I did the smart thing and
converted the plane to a tri gear. I purchased a Diehl nose gear assembly
and I had a single piece Grove gear made up. I put Tracy O'Brian brakes on
the gear and fabricated toe brake pedals to operate the hydraulics. The
main gear installation was really pretty easy once the brackets were made
up.
After two or three taxi test sessions it was obvious that for me the change
to tri gear was the right way to go. The plane felt very comfortable. It
had familiar handling traits on the ground and I had no trouble keeping it
straight under throttle. On the fourth taxi test everything felt so good at
50 that instead of slowing I followed through with a little more speed and
back pressure. The plane absolutely leapt into the air. I corrected with a
little forward pressure and within two oscillations I was climbing 700 fpm
at 80mph. Talking about a thrill! I played with the trim as I was climbing
and got settled so I wasn't holding the attitude with the stick. At this
point I would like to voice my observations about pitch sensitivity. I only
have about 100 hours logged mostly in a 152 but first hand experience can be
very valuable. In my opinion the kr2 is not pitch sensitive. What I have
found is that the kr2 is very stick sensitive. That is to say that I only
use a fraction of stick to control the plane. I have found that if I trim
properly I can fly with two finger tips on the stick. If the plane is not
trimmed properly then I find myself using too much control input and end up
over correcting. The plane responds so well that you can almost think about
banking and it will. Now to bring you back to where I left you last. I was
climbing out on the first flight. What a joy to feel the response of this
plane. I spent some time at altitude trying different speeds and flight
attitudes including some slow flight. Again, the trim control helped
greatly. I did not feel comfortable trying any stalls but I did have a good
idea of the stall speed from the first test flight. The big problem now was
how do I land this very sensitive plane when I was used to the yoke of a
152. The answer is not very smooth and not very pretty. It was inevitable
that I would end up over correcting on final. I was able to enter final at
80 mph but I was all over the place. The problem was that I kept telling
myself "fly the plane" when I should have let it fly itself. All of my
input was too much. Well, I made the runway and I made it to a full stop
and I didn't have a heart attack but it was close. As I was rolling out one
of the locals who was holding short, watching my landing, got on the radio
and asked if it was my first flight. After my affirmative reply all he said
was "It looks beautiful". I got out and kissed the ground.
Every flight since then has been much better and I got a chance to grease
one right in front of my CFI. Always a good thing to do.
Here is some data:
Dry weight is 598 lb
Engine is VW 1700cc
Carb is Ellison EFS-2
Prop is a Sterba 52 x 42
Header tank only - 16 gal
Fuel consumption is 3 to 3.5 gal per hr
Climb is 700 fpm at 80 mph
Max speed is 130 mph @ 3600 rpm
Cruse is 115 mph @ 3200 rpm
Landing approach @ 80 mph
Numbers @ 70 mph
Touch @ 60 or below
No flaps or speed brake and not much float.
Since it has been a very cold winter here in Vermont I have spent some time
putting on wheel pants and doing misc. work as I wait for some good flying
days. I hope to fly off the test hours this spring and by then I will
really know more about the performance. I also hope to build a larger
displacement VW and get some more speed out of her. Turbulence really moves
this plane around a lot because it is so light. I'm not sure how long a
period of time I could spend going fast and getting thrown around so much
but on a smooth day I can see this plane going fast!
I hope this has been helpful to those low time pilots trying to make some
decisions on their projects and maybe it will help the high time pilots
prepare for their first flights.
Regards,
Mike Geoghegan
Moretown Vermont
N47MG
